"Hey! Ava!"

… Ava, currently carrying a sizeable load of armaments, watched the young man run in from outside.

"Is there something wrong?"

He was looking frantically, and Ava noticed the Faunus boy's hair wasn't in his normal completely covered ears position-

...

Mal asked rapidly, "What the haberdashermash does Dale have to do with grassy trails?"

…

The woman paused briefly, laughed at his ridiculous appearance in justaxposition to his question, then turned to continue her work, kicking open a door and replying with a dry breath.

"Took you long enough, buddy. That's his semblance."

… "What?"

"I think it's some speed category," she explained.

"He just stands for a bit, then WHOOM-"

She made a blowing noise and waved her hands like a stage magician

"-He's outside your house explaining that you didn't polish the helmets properly."

… Mal stood there. His face stayed in gobsmackment far too long for her to believe this was a joke.

"Did you not know, kid?"

"#32."

"Pardon?"

"Thanks! I needed that. Tell Dale we have a town destroying disaster level Grimm problem coming by…dusk."

...

WE WHAT?

...

"Also, please remind him about #398."

… Ava had no clue what any of that was meant to mean, but she saw Mal's head perfectly fine, and had a good suspicion why they didn't show up today.

Thus, she set her cargo down in the armaments storage shelf, then proceeded to walk through the multipurpose guardhouse to find Dale.

She eventually went through the courtyard and decided to prime the other members of their little group.

"Fernwise, Enta, Fenne-"

… There was a far better way to get their attention.

She stood, trying to emulate her boss at his most terrifying. After a second she unintentionally swapped to the tone of Dale's she knew best.

Ava bellowed like these were her unruly kids.

… "HEY. ALL OF YOU PEOPLE. Be prepared for hell breaking loose levels of Grimm around town tonight. We need EVERY ABLE HAND helping to make things as IMPENETRABLE AS POSSIBLE."

The others froze in their positions as Ava trod a dust cloud towards them from her furious stomping for added effect.

"Weaponry, armour, traps, EVERYTHING. we need them all in excellent condition. We have two hours, then a segment for whatever you need to do before dusk in four hours."

She had to do a garrison check anyways, and because she did not want to explain why her supervisor's son, and her personal stagiair came in bleeding from the head, she may went slightly overboard.

If this actually happens and we can't do it... I'm dragging them all to the afterlife with me.

After riling up her friends to do their very best, she took the stairs up to the second floor, walking down the hall to where she heard Dale in his research state, scrawling letters intensely and flipping through books with a fervour.

"Dale?"

… "Ava. You can come in."

She paused slightly, noting his massive form surrounded by what looked like the contents of hundreds of books across his desk noted in his small sharp handwriting.

… Mask designs… historical entertainment groups and…?

I thought he was researching amnesiac cases?

Ava looked at the covers of one stack of books.

"History of the White Fang and other Insurrectionist Parties"

"Semblances Compendium, Edi 1-3"

"Faunus Physiology, Vale Localised Edition"

"Dale… what is all this? I thought you were trying to help your chi-"

He watched his coworker with haunted eyes, unblinkingly watching them as they gestured at the pile of literature.

"This is me trying to help."

"If I can't help them directly I can just do it like th-"

Ava realised what the weird number point was meant to be.

"How many books have you gone through trying to help, Dale?"

… "460"

"Probably more. I'm prepping for a serious Grimm appearance showing up tonight. Can I trust you'll send a message for reserve support?"

Dale froze.

"What was your 398th book about?"

Dale grabbed his notepapers and read about book #398. Nothing was relevant about "Memory Loss: Ways to Remember and Forget" for this situa-

…

"#398, titled Oracle. I was preventing you all from dying."

One is coincidence.

Two is probably intentional.

He spoke without breaking eye contact. "Ava. Did you meet Mal?"

"Yes. They asked about your semblance, and talked to me about a town destroying Grimm problem while ble-"

Ava stopped, realising she nearly slipped about Mal's head injury. They did NOT want to be the bearer of fantastically bad news, or realistic and very bad-for-a-father news.

"Mal… was bleeding." Dale spoke softly.

Ava nodded once, stiff mouthed.

"Send out a warning to everyone in town that there's going to be a significant amount of Grimm out tonight. Everyone should be protected or armed, and we need help to maximise traps and protective measures."

… "You… are taking it seriously?"

"As you pointed out, I'm trying to help my child, Ava."

#38. Blink.

Megan, learning about their title, wished dearly the participant had been #182, but it wasn't to be. The main problem they had faced was how to beat someone that could go anywhere? The task was to knock out the opponent, with an hour to prep a single supportive object.

… OH. That explained so much now.

First, they needed to talk to Marigold in order to find out the solution to a very specific issue with the plan. They ran at a good pace, outstripping everyone as they ran with abandon. Some people called out in questioning voices, but Mal ignored them. Upon reaching the medical clinic, they ran in and called out to the floor above.

"MARIGOLD?"

"I'm worki-"

"This is important!"

A pause was heard upstairs, followed by two doors opening in quick succession. Marigold stood leaning over the banister, staring wide eyed.

"Did something happen with Dale? I thought you were going home?"

"Not yet. Can you tell me if people can detect large amounts of Aura?"

...

Marigold paused, getting a chance to talk about one of their many medical interests, or being a supportive helper of an old friend's parenting?

… "Yes. It's a widespread method. How do you think-"

"I mean, if I had a town full of people all activate Aura at once, would it be a significant beacon for a detection technology to pick up?"

"Well, I suppose it would be possible for that to work, since people can-"

"If I took a blood draw and used my Aura, would my blood generate Aura?"

Marigold furrowed her brows.

"Mal… What's this for?"

"Can I see your kitchen first?"

… Marigold let him upstairs, and showed him her kitchen.

"Are you hungry, or something? You can explain yourself to me at my table."

Mal sat down at her table, and glanced at her fruit bowl.

"Lots of oranges, eh?"

"Dale likes them."

… Marigold paused, started, and made a clinking noise in her cabinets.

"Do you want a drink to get calmer after our…earlier checkup?"

…

"I'd take a cuppa."

…

Mal stared.

OH.

"Mal. You're... most likely breaking your grounding you implied having by being here. What's wrong?"

"I'm trying to prevent the destruction of the town tonight. Can I have your kettle?"

…

A cup crashed and rolled across the floor to end by Mal's feet, which Mal hurried to grab.

Marigold looked past her partition.

"My… kettle?"

"I'm making a signal for calling reinforcements early. Meg told me about it."

… She forced a smile, asking, "What does my kettle have to do with a signal? Don't we already have a messaging system?" While holding up her scroll, she tapped a few times, sending "?" to an empty scroll conversation titled "His kid".

Mal waited in silence and jolted as a small dinging noise appeared in Mal's pocket.

… I completely forgot I had that thing in there.

"Well, Marigold, this is one that's really hard to miss. I just realised how to put it all together."

Marigold sat down at the table with a small amount of noise.

"Explain it."

Cutting to the chase, I guess.

Mal held two fingers up, the other hand rolling an orange citrus.

"Two words: Aura mist."

Marigold's eyes sparkled, "The mist is created by?"

"Fire dust I took from our oven."

"Contained in… my kettle?"

"Yep."

Marigold noted an issue with this plan.

"What else could you use? Using my kettle would just create a tiny stream of steam that really wouldn't work as any kind of practical signal fire."

"That's where #38 comes into play."

Mal's grin along with a random number made her excitement fade slowly. She began to be very worried for her sleep for the next week. "Mal… explain them briefly, without incredibly violent behaviour." Mal tilted their head in thought.

… "Can't do that. If I put their ability and weakness simply, it would be…"

…

"oooh... Erm..."

Marigold sighed.

"Asthmatic teleporter."

Marigold paused, drinking her cup of citrus tea. "How are they relevant?"

"May I actually get this big thing done first? I need to borrow a meat knife and your kettle.

"No."

"Just your kettle?"

… "We'll have to boil the entire river to make enough steam for your idea to work, even if it was a viable way to spread as much Aura as you're suggesting. We'd be better off just getting everyone with Aura to activate it all at once, a foolhardy idea, or by just sending a message for hunters to come here"

"Meg says that won't work without enough this. Can I borrow a drill?"

… Marigold stopped trying to make out where all this was going, just requesting what he needed drilled.

"My flask here. I need a hole in the lid."

…

"Fine."

Mal handed over the flask, waiting for Marigold to stand up to grab some heavy duty equipment. She did not stand, just remained sitting in her chair.

"Marigold?"

"Shush, child. I'm concentrating."

Marigold slowly touched the spot they wanted a hole drilled into, pressing the point down. "This is the spot?"

"Marigold, If you tell me where your equ-"

She glared up at his seat, pressing at the flask lid to deliver an emphatic point. Her glaring face flickered a luminescent orange.

"Mal. Quiet." PTUNKK.

Marigold handed over the flask without a word.

A perfect circle cut was removed from the bottle, which she shook out of the flask, and set down on the table with a metallic tink noise.

Never get her murderous. Agreed?

Mal smiled in uncomfortable fear.

"Do you have roof access?"

… "There's a door to our right leading to a ladder."

The two of them went over quietly. Mal now contained a sizeable dose of fear of the town's medical practitioner.

"Before I let you do this, you are going to explain EXACTLY what you are trying to do."

…

"I'm going to rapidly manufacture blood and evaporate it inside this single opening container. It'll stay in the air from the high pressure expansion of the steam, staying suspended from the activated Aura trapping it with in place. It'll eventually saturate the cloud cover with Aura infused particles, allowing for a wide scale illumination."

…

Marigold muttered about the logistics of the plan, but didn't entirely deny her possible participation in it.

"… You killed the teleporter by making it impossible to escape the inflammatory particles."

Mal nodded once in agreement.

"That… certainly would be an unmissable thing to detect if an entire cloud region is all infused with Aura."

"How… would you re-contain … it?"

"Everything would most likely come back in 500 seconds."

She changed from contemplation to chastising in a heartbeat.

… "Mal. You're going to be triggering a ridiculous meteorological event with this. I need more than "most likely" to go with this."

…

"It'll be so high up in the atmosphere that there will probably be no real effect on the earth from any biohazard issues. After less than ten minutes it'll completely stop being a problem."

…

Marigold's interest hit a small bit of unusual coincidence. Less than 10 minutes…

"500 seconds?"

Mal smiled. "Exactly."